Stained Glass Ely

Founded in 1994, the Leadbitter Glass Studio has been supplying Overlay Stained Glass panels to homes and businesses across Ely ever since, delivering to every other part of the UK too. Ely Cathedral holds the National Stained Glass Museum, the only UK museum dedicated entirely to the craft, with over 100 panels spanning some 800 years of stained glass history — a fitting neighbour for anyone in town thinking about a panel of their own.

Every panel is designed and manufactured in our own Decorative Glass Studio — either from your own photo or idea, or from one of the hundreds of patterns in our gallery. Our Overlay Stained Glass comes as either toughened single glazing or a resilient double-glazed unit, and suits a front door, a landing window, or any other glazed opening in the home equally well. The great majority of orders qualify for free delivery across Ely.

We’ve supplied Overlay Stained Glass for a Prime Minister’s home, for Hollywood film sets, and for well-known musicians and billionaires — though the vast majority of what we make is still for homeowners across Ely. We also produce other styles of Decorative Glass for Ely clients, including Bevelled Glass, Etched Glass, and Fused Glass.

See your glass before we create it!

Our Free Client Pages Design Service

Every Ely order comes with a private Client Page, where a full-colour drawing of your design, built to scale, appears a few days after you order. Study it the way you might study a panel in the museum next door — if a colour needs deepening, or a motif making bolder, tell us and we’ll amend it. We only begin manufacturing once you’ve confirmed you’re happy with what you see.

Image above created using Minster Glass.

How Our Stained Glass Is Made

The panels in the Stained Glass Museum next door were built the old way — small pieces of coloured glass held together by soft lead, which is exactly why medieval and Victorian glass is so prone to cracking and letting the weather in as it ages. Our Overlay Stained Glass takes a different approach: both the leadwork and the colour are applied directly onto one continuous sheet of toughened safety glass, rather than piecing together dozens of separate fragments.

Pilkington K Glass is also available on request, and is required by current building regulations for new window and door installations across Ely and the rest of the UK.

Every panel is manufactured using toughened or laminated safety glass, since durability matters to us as much as how the finished design looks.

Plenty of homeowners have a story about traditional leaded glass costing good money, only to see individual pieces crack within weeks of fitting. Our Overlay Stained Glass was designed specifically to avoid that.

Our process

We hand-shape lead strips onto the toughened glass first, tracing an uncoloured outline of your chosen design. Once that’s complete, the glass is turned over and coloured piece by piece, each section held within its own leaded boundary.

Matching lead lines are then added to the reverse to mirror the front exactly, so the finished panel is leaded and coloured on both faces — the kind of detail that a museum-goer would notice and appreciate.

A choice of lead finishes is available too — see our Leaded Glass page for the full range.

Ready to have Overlay Stained Glass, or any other decorative glass, made for your Ely home or business? Get in touch today for an accurate quote and turnaround time.

Browse Our Leaded Glass Galleries

Our website holds one of the largest collections of decorative glass patterns anywhere. Browse hundreds of Leaded Glass designs in our main gallery, arranged by theme and by door style, to find the right pattern — or simply for inspiration towards your own. Visit the Main Gallery to see what’s possible.

Notable Stained Glass Commissions from the Ely area…